Walla Walla, home of Whitman College and Walla Walla Community College (see "visit young cousin" in paragraph 1) is in the heart of Washington's wine country and a charming small town. An interesting mix of academia, farmland, wine growers and ranchers, it is also very bike-friendly.

Given the extraordinary cargo space of a Tesla Model S, DB (darling boyfriend) and I were able to pack two folding bikes, swim gear, luggage, laptop bags, bike gear, emergency supplies and food with *plenty* of room to spare. And it all packs out of sight which, for this city girl, is an important plus.

DB took the car out on his own for a few hours on our third day to put it though his paces without me hovering. His report: "Deb, this is truly the nicest car of any sort I have ever driven!"

Some of the other things we found in Walla Walla: good wine, good coffee and solar charging at Walla Walla Community College which turns the most top-rated community colleges in the nation. It also has a very advanced renewable energy studies and water studies program and also a solar-powered EV charging station array in their sciences center! Who knew? Biking around campus, I was really wishing I was in my twenties again and could study there.

Anyway, a good time was had by both us Tesla Newbies and I look forward to more long-distance travel in Sir Percival T! (Thank you, Universe, for being so wonderful!)

Neah Bayis on the Makah Tribal Lands. The Makah have a long history of occupying these lands and are famous for their whale hunting and fisheries. They were also one of the first tribes in the US to demandaccordance with the original treaties between the US and the Tribes in exercising these hunting and fishing rights.

In a famous case, United States vs Washington State, US Justice George Boldt handed down a landmark decision that the sports and commercial industries has no rights nor claim to these tribal fishing and whaling practices and had to cease harassing the Makah and honor in reality that original treaty.An excellent book is available on this subject is A Lawyer in Indian Country by Alvin Ziontz.

After hiking out to Cape Flattery, generally agreed to be the farthest NW point of the continental, contiguous US, I visited Makah Tribal Museum and was awed by the rich collection of tribal artifacts and historical archives of the tribes. Much of this was found when the Makah recovered their buried town of Ozette, WA in a partnership with University of Washington Archeology Dept. in the 1970's.

It is learning things like the above that drives me-pardon the pun-to travel.

Lastly, I am delighted to report that the Makah Tribe, in partnership with Tesla and Sun Country EV Chargers, has six EV charging stations on tribal lands: four Tesla plugs and two J1772 general EV plugs. Hopefully this will inspire more clean, pollution-free visits to this very wonderful place.

Everyone always asks: where can you charge your electric car? Well, in the case of a Tesla Model S:everywhere!

Tesla Motors was really smart. They built out (and continue to build out) their own charging network a little bit ahead of their car output. You can now, as of 2016, drive a Tesla completely across the country and then some.

And this image only shows the 440v Superchargers: there are thousands of other charging opportunities (see plugshare.com)

So my goal? Drive Sir Percival Tesla to all four corners of the contiguous ,continental USA. Why? Because we CAN!